Entrepreneurship Bubbles in Bengal, India |  |
- Entrepreneurship Bubbles in Bengal, India
- Taking Control of Your Online Reputation Part II: External Monitoring
- Interview with Guy Kawasaki: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur
| Entrepreneurship Bubbles in Bengal, India Posted: 10 Feb 2013 12:00 PM PST
InSync Tech-Fin Solutions One of the winners was InSync Tech-Fin Solutions, founded in 2009 to help eCommerce merchants worldwide to increase their efficiency by presenting an integrated solution between Magento and SAP Business One. Through their flagship product, SBOeConnect, the company provides both the capability of back office ERP Systems that today's eCommerce solutions lack, as well as a compelling form of integration. Atul Gupta's move to Kolkata in 2006, combined with his computer science background and passion for information technology, provided the inspiration to serve Indian SMBs locally. It was through a focus on both service and product that Atul found the need for SBOeConnect. Initially, the finances for Atul's venture came from family funds – InSync now operates on cash flow. And with a potential total addressable market of $95 million and a target of established and emerging eCommerce merchants, InSync is already profitable in the realm of $500,000, and has 80 paying customers to date. iQeCommerce Next we have the 2006-founded iQeCommerce, a hosted solution providing easy and efficient setup for small business owners in need of an eCommerce store online. Essentially SaaS via an eCommerce website, what began with the single site design of a collage website has evolved past a freelancing portal into a functional business. iQeCommerce offers, among its services, custom store design, professional setup and pay-per-click (PPC) setup, with quotes provided based upon services requested. The company aims to develop a solution that maintains a high level of quality, thereby establishing long-term bonds with their clients. Additional claims include ensuring the customer is provided all required tools to compete in their respective market; considering iQeCommerce enters a competitive market itself, working against the likes of BigCommerce and Volusion, it's an ambitious goal. Founders Nilmoni Basak and Abhisek Kumar are longtime business partners, counting iQeCommerce as their second startup. Abhisek brings six years of experience in Project Management and Delivery, customer handling and troubleshooting to the venture, while Nilmoni's past experience includes frontend design and working with the technical team to execute the product. Together, they hope to acquire 1,000 customers on iQecommerce within the next eight to ten months. Over the past six years, the company can count over 500 customers served, and have designed and developed over 1,000 sites. Product revenues have exceeded the $200,000 mark. Debate.fm Working to the principle, "keep it simple," the relatively new Debate.fm is reinventing the previous conceptions of online forums by featuring three full layers of user engagement and is heavily integrated with social media. Founded in May 2011, the startup presents an online platform that allows its users to start a debate in three easy steps, and to continue discussing their ideas with even greater facility. Founder Kamanashish Roy wanted to give debaters simple and varied means to make their ideas heard; moreover, his site provides a more anonymous means of sharing and discussing culturally sensitive issues than popular online communities such as Facebook. Kamanashish is no stranger to the media space, with degrees in Journalism and Mass Communication as well as professional experience in online marketing. He was inspired to discuss a first post with his partners after watching a televised debate regarding a nuclear power plant in the spring of 2011. Their first prototype launched with just a single debate to widely popular reviews. Debate.fm currently acts as an offering of Kamanashish's current company, WebPrachar.com, which offers similar services to offshore clients. ShopOffice Another budding venture, ShopOffice, is an online provider of office supplies, designed to serve the needs of small businesses. Under the slogan "you click we deliver," ShopOffice is intended to be a one-stop-shop to order needed materials online for delivery, with no hassle. Founder Rohit Singh became deeply interested in entrepreneurship while still completing a degree in computer engineering, and through his research was exposed to leading office supply providers Office Depot and Staples. Upon discovering that the concept had yet to be introduced in Eastern India, he set out to fill the niche. Now, let us also look at the companies that are taking off in Bengal. Indus Net Technologies Founded in 2002, Indus Net Technologies provides end-to-end Web and mobile technology solutions and digital marketing services – specifically application development for web and mobile, integrated digital marketing and web design with specific work in SEO and SEM. The majority of Indus Net's business lies in emerging companies, closely followed by digital agencies and enterprise; the company empowers small businesses and startups through the Indus Net Express program. After purchasing a book on HTML and attending an exhibition on the subject in his hometown of Kolkata, founder Abhishek Rungta used the connections he made and the knowledge he acquired to make his way into the Internet business. Indus Net is a fully bootstrapped venture of over 500 full-time professionals and boats an annual turnover of over $5 million. Virtual Information and Communications (VirtualInfoCom) Another Kolkata company, Virtual Information and Communications (VirtualInfoCom) offers all manner of animation and graphics, counting among its accolades the title of India's first game development training course, India's first smart phone application training institute and creator of India's first mythological PC game. In 1999, when the company was founded, animation in India was relatively new. As founder Arijit Bhattacharya was continuously approached by job seekers, he eventually decided to convert the demand into a training institute. In addition, a team of 91 now spans three separate offices; services offered now include game development, mobile gaming and ad promotion, visual and special effects, Web page design, software development, and many more. Games are created, sometimes from the concept stage, for sale through resellers, at which time VirtualInfoCom receives royalties for each download. Today, the company has over 175 resellers for their products, providing 60% of the company's revenue – which has nearly hit the $4.8 million mark. This combines with additional revenues from training institute enrollments and site traffic from an online gaming portal. Pinnacle Infotech Next we have Pinnacle Infotech, providing CAD design, modeling and drafting solutions since its launch in 1992. Using the latest technologies, Pinnacle provides Building Information Modeling (BIM) services for the architecture, engineering, construction, electrical, and plumbing segments, and many more. The company is comprised of a team of 500 engineers, architects, and CAD professionals. Founder Bimial Patwari began work in management consulting after a degree in electronics engineering, but realized his real passion was for entrepreneurship. After becoming an AutoDesk certified partner and providing training to engineering students in AutoDesk products, he realized the need for AutoCAD design services, which provided the basis for Pinnacle to go global in 1998. The company has been entirely bootstrapped to the $6 million revenue mark, and continues to grow at a rate of 35% per year. Projects have shifted to larger scale designs such as airports, hospitals and convention centers. A1 Future Technologies Another Web design specialist, A1 Future Technologies, was born out of freelance work and gained momentum by specializing in corporate identity solutions. Founder Srish Agarwal began as a freelance graphic designer while still in college, running a cyber café, during which time he became exposed to and learned web design. He then went on to create his Elance profile and began bidding in 2002. After hiring eight to ten young, fresh designers, he had built himself a team to work on the design projects that were increasing in volume. Once client began offering projects to Srish directly, he felt the time was right to break away from the exchange. With revenues at $1.25 million in 2011 and a total of 60-65 projects per day, as well as an affiliated animated video site set to launch soon, A1 is doing steady business. FusionCharts Finally on our long list of Bengal-based startups is FusionCharts, a software suite that allows customers to create Flash charts: animated and interactive charts for use in Web and enterprise applications. Using a combination of Microsoft ASP and Flash technologies, the company offers 14 separate data visualization products that integrate with enterprise applications, PowerPoint and SharePoint, as well extensions for other applications such as Dreamweaver. FusionCharts co-founder Pallav Nadhani developed and successfully launched the company while still in high school, drawing upon his father's enthusiasm for technology and the convenience of their longtime home computer. Through a self-taught series of computer skills, Pallav learned that no user-friendly forms of data visualization yet existed. Today, the company is fully bootstrapped to its current revenue mark of $7 million. Over one billion charts are created each month by 21,000 customers in over 115 countries. So next time someone tells you that there are no entrepreneurs in Bengal, you can comfortably introduce them to Pallav, Bimal, Srish, Arijit, Abhishek, or Atul. And in due course, many hundreds of others. India Photo via Shutterstock The post Entrepreneurship Bubbles in Bengal, India appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Taking Control of Your Online Reputation Part II: External Monitoring Posted: 10 Feb 2013 08:00 AM PST
Unfortunately, no matter how well you build your reputation, there are going to be people who will try to tear you down. They could be disgruntled former employees, dissatisfied customers, online reviewers and bloggers or even your competitors. What can you do to protect yourself and your business from these online onslaughts? There is no magic wand that will make all of the negative comments go away, but there are practices and procedures that will help you to minimize the damage. Step 1: Get Yourself Some Listening Tools The only way to truly protect your reputation is to know what is being said about you or your brand (and who is saying it). Negative statements, lies, rumors can spread in an instant. The longer you wait to deal with these comments, the more damage will be done. Fortunately, there are many tools out there that will help you to monitor what is being said about your brand, your executives, your products and your employees. The most basic listening tool of all is an Internet search. If you've never monitored brand sentiment, simply search your company name and see what comes up. Google's advanced search helps you see what's being said in the news and in blogs. To get notifications sent to you by e-mail, set up Google Alerts for your company name, executives' names and for product names. Google Alerts sends you a notification when you have been mentioned in articles, blogs, etc. Some more sophisticated (but still free) listening tools include SocialMention, Technorati (great for mentions in blogs), Twilert (like Google Alerts, but for Tweets) and Klout. If you are a major brand, need more sophisticated monitoring and have the budget to pay for it, you can get extremely detailed and informative results that not only show where you've been mentioned, but give you valuable data on brand sentiment. Some of the leading tools include Cision, Radian6, and IBM Cognos® Consumer Insight (CCI). Step 2: Take a Deep Breath Before You React The Web has given people enormous power to damage a brand. Negative reviews on sites like Yelp or Angie's List can crush a business. Nobody likes to be criticized. If you are in business, though, it's going to happen and it's going to happen often. How you react to such criticism can be the difference between a meaningless annoyance and a full-blown crisis. The key here is to keep a cool head and analyze the situation. While there is no single formula, here are a few things to think about before reacting:
Step 3: Be Civil There is a reason why they call it social media. The Web is a place where communities are created, where conversations take place and where relationships are established. As in any community or relationship, there will be disputes. Handle them professionally, civilly, with grace and even with humor. This will humanize you and your company and only serve to establish you as positive member of the Web community. Step 4: Learn from the Experience Conversations on the Web are always evolving. As in any crisis situation, try to learn from your mistakes and use that knowledge to improve the way you do business. If there were complaints about your products, listen to them and fix the problem. If there were complaints about your services or your employees, take those complaints to heart. Think of social media as a massive focus group. Criticism can be very healthy for a business owner. It can provide a wake-up call and it can be a great test of your customer service, your flexibility and your leadership. Reputation Photo via Shutterstock The post Taking Control of Your Online Reputation Part II: External Monitoring appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Interview with Guy Kawasaki: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur Posted: 10 Feb 2013 06:00 AM PST
Below is an exclusive interview I conducted with him via email: Question: How do you like to be introduced since you’re a man with many hats? Kawasaki: My self-identity is a father and husband. As a father and husband, one of my roles is a provider. My speaking, writing, advising, and investing are all means to an end–that of adequately providing for my family. Question: Your bad experience with trying to order 500 eBooks from your publisher prompted you to write this book. Tell me why that was such a big deal. Don’t publishers screw up all the time? Kawasaki: More accurately, the 500 eBook order prompted me to write What the Plus!, a self-publishing that book showed me how hard the process was, and this made me decide to write APE. The 500 eBook order was a big deal because I couldn’t comprehend why it was so hard to fill. An order like that is something to cherish, not throw to the wind. Question: Do you think everyone has a good story to tell? Won’t there be a lot of junk, poorly written, self-published books if everyone writes one? Kawasaki: Not everyone has a good story to tell. Not every musician has a good song. Not every artisanal baker, brewer and winemaker makes good stuff. Not every Indie film producer makes good movies. All these paths produce lots of crap. But at least the barriers to entry are lower so that more people can publish books, write songs, bake, brew and make movies. The world is a richer place when the barriers are lower because no one knows (including editors) who will produce the next great piece of literature. No matter how much crap comes out because of self-publishing, that’s still better than six companies in New York deciding what people should be able to read. The democratization of information is an irresistible force. Question: What are the biggest disadvantages of self-publishing? Kawasaki: The biggest disadvantages are the lack of an advance, responsibility for all aspects of publishing including writing, editing, designing, and marketing, and the feeling of loneliness when you’re doing most of this by yourself. However, self-publishing still beats total rejection by traditional publishers and never getting your book out. The advantages of self-publishing are that you can control the entire process. You can get your book to market much faster and you make more money per copy. Question: Don’t some people need hand holding? Kawasaki: People don’t need hand holding as much as information, because they’ve never gone through the process before. We wrote APE to help all these people. Think of APE as “what to expect when you’re publishing.” Question: Will you ever work with a traditional publishing house again? Kawasaki: Sure, all it would take is a huge advance. So huge that I don’t care if the procedures of a traditional publisher puts a 500 copy eBook order in jeopardy. There are only two kinds of authors – those who want a big advance, and those who are lying. Question: What’s your beef with ghostwriters? I know a very successful one who works with thought leaders who can’t write but need books. Kawasaki: Call me idealistic, but a book should be a piece of your soul. It should represent your blood, sweat, and tears. It’s very hard to dictate a piece of your soul. It’s like a person saying to a ghost musician, “I’ll hum a tune. You make it into a song and write the words.” Question: How much money should you set aside for editing, design and the back end production? Do you have a ballpark estimate? Kawasaki: Our guideline is that it takes about $4,000 to content edit, copy edit, design a cover, and layout the book. Really great marketing costs another $20,000. This makes the total cost approximately $25,000, worst case. There are ways to cut this to $2,000 by paying for professional copy editing and cover designing only. But $25,000 would pay for doing everything in a first class way. Fortunately, this amount of money, $2,000 to $25,000, is fundable using websites such as Indiegogo or Kickstarter. The probability of raising $25,000 using Indiegogo or Kickstarter is much higher than the probability of a novice author finding a traditional publisher. Question: What’s next for you? Another book? Kawasaki: I’ll be marketing APE for quite a while doing webinars and speeches about the topic of artisanal publishing. This is another advantage of artisanal publishing – a traditional publisher, best case, markets your book for two months and then moves on. An artisanal publisher can market his or her book forever. The post Interview with Guy Kawasaki: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
Entrepreneurship, and the spirit that drives it, can be an infectious phenomenon. In 2012, even some of the less entrepreneurial parts of India have started showing signs of life. At a recently held pitch competition in Kolkata, we got a taste of this enthusiasm.
As I recently wrote in 
Guy Kawasaki is an author, speaker and tech evangelist. His latest book, | You are subscribed to email updates from Small Business Trends To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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Thanks for helpful article!
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